Construction crews are busy completing the final two pieces of the Ceres Gateway Center – Ceres’ second Panda Express restaurant and the Woodspring Inn & Suites.
Both buildings are completely wrapped with the focus on interior finish work and landscaping. In the case of Woodspring, that’s an especially tall order when you’re talking about completing 122 rooms occupying 50,800 square feet on four stories. The hotel is by far the largest commercial construction project since the Walmart Supercenter.
A representative of Choice Hotels which owns the Woodspring brand chain said the hotel is expected to open in the spring.
While Woodspring has over 280 hotels across the country, it is not well known in California where Ceres will be the ninth location and the only one in Northern or Central California. The chain operates in Lancaster, Corona, Colton, Bell Flower, Moreno Valle, Indio and two in Bakersfield.
The chain was founded as Value Place in 2003 but rebranded to Woodspring in April 2015.
The company website notes that: “Instead of booking on a nightly basis like a traditional hotel, our guests tend to book with us for a week, month, or longer. Since we have less turn-over, we pass the savings on to you with weekly and monthly rates that cost less per night the longer you stay!”
The hotel is considered an extended stay facility with in-room kitchens featuring a full-sized refrigerator/freezer, microwave oven, two-burner cook top, a large prep sink, counter space and cupboards. They also boast laundry vending services and gyms.
While Woodspring can accommodate one-night stays for folks needing to sleep for the night and move on, extended stay hotels are designed for weekly or months long stays since they have in-room kitchen features.
Longer term guests often include construction crews, IT and medical professionals, homeowners in the process of moving or remodeling their homes, tourists and traveling military and government personnel.
The company website said that guests can save an average of 34 percent per night on weekly hotel rates and 44 percent on monthly hotel rates.
The hotel project almost wasn’t approved by the city. Early in 2022, the city council was reluctant to amend the zoning regulations that set a height limit of 35 feet for buildings in the Regional Commercial, or RC zone. Woodspring wanted to build only a four-story hotel of 50 feet high or drop plans for Ceres. The last holdout was then Councilman Mike Kline who dropped his objections to the taller structure after it was demonstrated that the hotel would not block freeway traveler’s visibility of the nearby Walmart Supercenter.
Panda Express
On the heels of the opening of Nick the Greek and the Union 76 gas station and convenience store comes the building of Ceres’ second Panda Express.
In April 2024, the Ceres Planning Commission approved a Specific Plan Site Plan to build a 2,623 square foot building for a Panda Express restaurant with dual drive-thru lanes in the southernmost parcel of the Ceres Gateway Center adjacent to the northbound freeway onramp.
The other Panda Express location in Ceres at Hatch and Mitchell will remain in operation.
